Associate Professor Debra Talbot
Dr Debra Talbot is Associate Professor of Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work. She has more than 20 years experience as a classroom teacher, head of department in government and independent sectors, and professional learning consultant. Debra's research interests are in teacher education and teacher professional learning, particularly the translation of theory into practice expressed through curriculum and pedagogy for social justice. She continues to work with teachers in schools in these areas.
Teacher education and teacher research, mentoring, practitioner inquiry, inquiry pedagogies, student engagement, social change, Institutional Ethnography, Bakhtin, Boredom
Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), member
International Sociology Association
2021 SEMCAN Good Mentor Award for mentoring of HDR and non-HDR students
2020 USS Commendation for Excellence in Teaching - EDUF3028 Mentoring in Educational Contexts
2018 Outstanding Author Contribution, Emerald Publishing
Selected publications
Publications
Books
- Mockler, N., Talbot, D. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: English. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Mockler, N., Talbot, D. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: History. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Talbot, D., Mockler, N. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: Mathematics. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
Book Chapters
- Talbot, D. (2020). Self-study and the apparatus: Weaving student feedback into a useful fabric. In C. Edge, A. Cameron-Standerford, & B. Bergh (Eds.), Textiles and tapestries. Online: EdTech Books. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2018). Distinguishing spaces of mentoring: Mentoring as praxis. In J. Kriewaldt, A. Ambrosetti, D. Rorrison, R. Capeness (Eds.), Educating future teachers: Innovative perspectives in professional experience, (pp. 91-103). Singapore: Springer. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2018). The dialogic production of informant specific maps. In J. Reid, L. Russell (Eds.), Perspectives on and from institutional ethnography, (pp. 1-28). Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. [More Information]
Journals
- Talbot, D. (2025). Designing professional experience placements: learning to innovate. Teaching Education, 36(1), 37-54. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2025). Everyday Acts of Resistance in Teachers’ Work: Leaders Making Distinctions Between Responsibility and Accountability. Critical Sociology. [More Information]
- Brownlee, P., McGraw, A., Talbot, D., Buchanan, J. (2023). Intellectual freedom and teaching performance assessment in Australia. Australian Educational Researcher. [More Information]
Research Reports
- Hayes, D., Down, B., Talbot, D., Choules, K. (2013). Big Picture Education Australia: Experiences of students, parents/carers & Teachers, (pp. 4 - 59). Sydney, Australia: The University of Sydney.
2025
- Talbot, D. (2025). Designing professional experience placements: learning to innovate. Teaching Education, 36(1), 37-54. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2025). Everyday Acts of Resistance in Teachers’ Work: Leaders Making Distinctions Between Responsibility and Accountability. Critical Sociology. [More Information]
2023
- Brownlee, P., McGraw, A., Talbot, D., Buchanan, J. (2023). Intellectual freedom and teaching performance assessment in Australia. Australian Educational Researcher. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2023). Using institutional ethnography and students’ voices to explore capacity to learn. Australian Educational Researcher. [More Information]
2021
- Talbot, D., Thomas, M. (2021). Experience in another place: Teacher learning from an overseas placement. Teaching Education, 32(2), 109-126. [More Information]
- Thomas, M., Talbot, D. (2021). Exploring epistemologies: Deepening pre-service teachers' ways of knowing through international professional experience. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 49(2), 163-176. [More Information]
2020
- Hayes, D., Talbot, D., Mayes, E. (2020). Diffractive accounts of inequality in education: Making the effects of differences evident. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33(3), 357-371. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2020). Institutional ethnography and the materiality of affect: Affective circuits as indicators of other possibilities. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 49(5), 691-709. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2020). Self-study and the apparatus: Weaving student feedback into a useful fabric. In C. Edge, A. Cameron-Standerford, & B. Bergh (Eds.), Textiles and tapestries. Online: EdTech Books. [More Information]
2018
- Talbot, D., Denny, J., Henderson, S. (2018). 'Trying to decide..what sort of teacher I wanted to be': Mentoring as a dialogic practice. Teaching Education, 29(1), 47-60. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2018). Distinguishing spaces of mentoring: Mentoring as praxis. In J. Kriewaldt, A. Ambrosetti, D. Rorrison, R. Capeness (Eds.), Educating future teachers: Innovative perspectives in professional experience, (pp. 91-103). Singapore: Springer. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2018). The dialogic production of informant specific maps. In J. Reid, L. Russell (Eds.), Perspectives on and from institutional ethnography, (pp. 1-28). Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. [More Information]
2016
- Talbot, D. (2016). 'To be numerate is to be someone..': Tracing the doings of students labelled 'at risk'. Australian Educational Researcher, 43(4), 419-436. [More Information]
- Talbot, D. (2016). Evidence for no-one: Standards, accreditation, and transformed teaching work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 58, 80-89. [More Information]
- Talbot, D., Hayes, D. (2016). Teachers' experiences of re-engaging disenfranchised young people in learning through inquiry-based pedagogies: A phenomenographic study. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 7(2), 257-274. [More Information]
2015
- Talbot, D. (2015). Teachers talk about their learning: A Bakhtinian analysis. Knowledge Cultures, 3(4), 171-187.
2013
- Mockler, N., Talbot, D. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: English. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Mockler, N., Talbot, D. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: History. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Talbot, D., Mockler, N. (2013). Australian Curriculum, Classroom Approaches: Mathematics. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.
Selected Grants
2017
- AITSL - TPA Grant - University of Melbourne Consortium - Assessment for Graduate Teaching, Mayer D, Tognolini J, Simpson A, Cotton W, Talbot D, Bobis J, Brownlee P, Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL)/Teaching Performance Assessment Grant Program